Basemark Launches GPU Vulkan Benchmark To Yardstick Next Gen OpenGL Performance

Tomorrow's VR (virtual reality) applications are going to usher in a new era of graphics based on the Khronos Group's Vulkan API. To make sure the industry is properly equipped to benchmark such things, Basemark today announced its new GPU Vulkan benchmarking software, which it's developing in close cooperation with some big name companies like Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Imagination Technologies, Qualcomm, and Renesas.

You can think of the Vulkan API as the spiritual successor to OpenGL. What's different about Vulkan is that it's a low-level API that gives developers direct control of GPU resources. In that way, it's similar to Mantle (AMD), DirectX 12 (Microsoft), and Metal (Apple), but unlike those, Vulkan is fully open source.

Vulkan is also a cross-platform API that will be available on both mobile devices and high-end graphics cards.

Basemark GPU Vulkan

Details about Basemark's GPU Vulkan are hard to come by, other than the Finnish company claiming it's a real-world benchmark, not a synthetic one.

"Our customers require relevant Vulkan API performance tests as opposed to theoretical workloads. We have spent considerable resources in researching and planning a relevant and dependable performance test in Basemark GPU Vulkan," said Tero Sarkkinen, founder and CEO of Basemark. "We urge all industry experts and leading companies to join the development program to help us device the true industry standard Vulkan API benchmark."

Basemark began development on the new benchmark back in August. Commercially available versions for both mobile and PC platforms are expected to be ready by the second quarter of next year.